


Recovery Time

by Toft



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-01 22:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11496144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toft/pseuds/Toft
Summary: Set after S03E02 "Nothing to Hide"."Fine," Shaw said, after a moment. "I’ll leave you to lick your wounds. Or each other’s wounds. Whatever."





	Recovery Time

**Author's Note:**

> Just a tiny snippet to try to get me writing again!

On her delivery of John back to the safehouse, where Harold was pretending he had meant to spend the night the whole time, Sameen Shaw checked Bear for injuries - which Harold was appalled he hadn’t done himself - then gave Harold a look that doubled his headache.

“This was a fuck up.”

 “Hey,” croaked John, flat on his back on the couch. “We couldn’t have known about Collier’s involvement.”

“Not you,” Shaw snapped. “Him.”

“I should have kept a closer eye on Kruger,” Harold said heavily, closing his eyes against the rising nausea.

“We shouldn’t have left you alone with him. You’re not combat trained.”

“I had Bear.”

“Did you tell Bear to guard?”

“Well, no, but -”

“Bear shouldn’t be your first line of defence. Kruger could have shot him.”

Harold couldn’t really bring himself to be offended that Shaw was clearly more upset about the risk to Bear than to him. In truth, he felt the same way.

“You left him too,” John volunteered, somewhat unwisely, from the couch.

“I thought you two knew how to look after yourself and make risk assessments based on your capabilities. Clearly I was wrong. Can you even use a firearm?”

“I don’t like firearms, Ms Shaw,” Harold said. He held up a hand as she started to protest. “Your point is well taken. We’ll be more careful in future. May I suggest that we defer this discussion?”

Shaw had already made a perfunctory check of his scalp and pupils on entry, but she gave him a hard look now.

“Fine,” she said, after a moment. “I’ll leave you to lick your wounds. Or each other’s wounds. Whatever. Ice and rest.”

She closed the door, Harold thought, rather more loudly than necessary. The initial pain at the back of his head from the blow with the vase had settled into a throb that pounded through his ears and down the back of his neck. John was probably worse off. Shaw had helped him take off the vest, at least.

“You want to lick my wounds, Harold?” John sounded like he was smiling.

It occurred to Harold, belatedly, that Shaw knew that he and John were… something. The thought was confusing, but strangely gratifying, given that Harold barely knew it himself. He wondered which of them had given it away.

“Perhaps not literally, but yes. Just a moment.”

“You gonna throw up if you move?”

Harold closed his eyes. “Maybe.”

John swung his legs off the couch with a pained grunt. “Okay.”

Harold heard him moving around, and felt Bear press against his leg.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Not your fault.”

Something cool draped over his forehead, and something very cold against the back of his head.

“Hold that for a few minutes. Then see if you can take these.” A couple of tablets pressed into his palm. John’s fingers were cold from the ice, and they lingered on his hand for only a second, unsure of their welcome.

“Did you find the other ice packs and tape?” If he spoke very quietly, it didn’t hurt as much, and the facecloth was helping. “For your ribs.”

“Yeah.”

John seemed to have no inclination to return to the couch, but wasn’t sitting down on one of the empty chairs either; Harold recalled that the last time he broke a rib, John had avoided sitting or bending for nearly a week.

“Bed?” he said, after a moment of hesitation.

A nearly equal pause followed. “Sure.” John’s voice sounded rough, but that was probably pain.

John had kissed him, in the library, the smell of paper and static and metal marking the moment indelibly in his memory. John had asked, and Harold had said yes - or perhaps Harold had looked too long, for once, and John had stepped forward - and they hadn’t really done anything about it yet. It hung between them, that one anomalous, aching kiss, John gasping his disbelief into Harold’s mouth as Harold pulled him closer by the collar, and since then, shy little touches. John’s fingertips brushing across the back of Harold’s hand now and then, or the warmth of his palm through Harold’s blazer, with no pretense at any purpose other than to touch him. It was startling enough, Harold thought, for both of them to avoid hurrying. The difference was evident now, when John took Harold’s hand instead of his elbow or shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Harold said, but John, sensible for once, didn’t try to take any of his weight. He must be in quite a lot of pain. “There’s no danger of you puncturing a lung, is there?”

“Nah,” John grated. “No jogging for a few days, that’s all.”

“Ms Shaw could have helped you tape it before she left.”

They walked gingerly towards the bedroom together, and pretended they weren’t holding hands. Bear watched them from his bed. He’d settled, since John had returned.

“She was right. I was careless. You could have been killed.”

“We all made mistakes, and I don’t especially like the tactic of punishing you by leaving you to tape your own ribs.”

“You’ll tape them for me,” John said, with a quick smile across at him which Harold couldn’t help but return.

“She didn’t know that.”

“She probably did.”

Harold frowned. “Did you tell…”

“No. I’m just…” John lifted a shoulder, then stiffened and caught his breath.

“No more talking,” Harold said, and led him to the bed, and tried not to get in the way as John, a line creasing his forehead, lowered himself onto the bed.

“Shirt.”

That wry smile again as Harold helped him, undressing John one shirt button at a time. “This isn’t exactly how I imagined this would go.”

They were talking about this, then. Harold hadn’t been sure. He desperately wanted to know what, exactly, John had imagined, and long he had been imagining it; this didn’t seem the time to ask. “Perhaps you should have, given our livelihoods.”

“How’s your head?”

“Better.”

John managed to shrug off the shirt, eyes shut and expression fixed, and Harold stopped him when he began to raise his arms to take off his undershirt.

“… yeah, maybe not,” John grimaced.

“I’ll cut it off, not to worry.”

He sliced John’s vest off with the shears in the first-aid kit and taped John’s ribs as quickly and dispassionately as he could. Pain lanced down his neck every time he moved, but it was a pleasure to touch him, to look at him, even with the poor bruised blotches spreading down his side. He couldn’t hide from himself that it always had been. John watched him through the whole process, which didn’t help.

“All right,” Harold said, when he was satisfied. “Up.”

John took a few short breaths before lifting his legs and lying back with a grunt of pain. Then he slowly relaxed.

“It’s better,” he said, looking faintly surprised. “Thanks.”

Harold decided that he felt able to swallow the pills, and discovered in doing so that he was desperately thirsty.

“Easy,” John said, after Harold drained half the glass. “Give it a few minutes.”

Harold sat back carefully against the bedrest, pillows behind his back. He felt dizzy at the idea of lying down or touching the back of his head against anything, but sitting still was infinitely better than moving around, and at least John was more comfortable here.

“Was it good for you?” John murmured, and Harold was shocked into laughter that hurt his head abominably, but was worth it, especially for John’s flashing grin, so precious when genuine. There was some lint on John’s forehead; Harold brushed it off, then, daring, ran his finger along his jaw. John’s expression did something strange, and Harold wondered if he’d been too familiar.

“Can I…” Harold paused, not really sure what to ask for.

“Whatever you want.”

Harold couldn’t say that John sounded breathless, exactly, because he always sounded a little breathy, but he was beginning to recognise the look John had when he wanted this; it was the closest thing to fear he’d ever seen on him. Harold ran his hand over John’s bare shoulder and down his arm. He let his thumb rest over the groove of John’s elbow, brushed the hairs on his forearm with his fingers. John’s skin was cool in the air conditioning.

“Are you warm enough?’

“Mm.”

The motion didn’t hurt his head; he didn’t even have to move his eyes all that much. John’s chest rose and fell gently under his hand. Eventually, John closed his eyes and stopped his hand with his own. He held Harold’s hand against his stomach, and rubbed his thumb over his wrist, back and forth.

“I’d kiss you, if I felt it were wise to move,” Harold said at last. It was as if his limbs were in warm water while an ice pick dug at the base of his neck; and yet, his head didn’t throb nearly as much now, and desire was a strangely comforting, comfortable cushion.

“Yeah,” John sighed. He had shifted along the bed in short, careful movements, so that he was pressed entirely along Harold’s side, his head near his hip. His closeness wasn’t as strange as Harold had thought it might be.

“What were you going to say, before?”

“Hmm?”

“You began to say why Shaw knew about - suspected something, but you didn’t finish.”

“Oh,” John said. He twisted a little to look up at Harold. “I’m just kind of a hopeless case.” He was smiling, but he had that look on his face again, like fear.

“Oh,” Harold said, stunned. He touched John’s cheek again. “I think - I think I might be in a pretty bad way myself.”

“Yeah?” John settled his head more firmly against Harold’s hip. “Lucky we can keep an eye on each other, then.”

After sitting in a daze for a little while, Harold thought of something. “Do you want me to order delivery? You must be starving.”

John twined his fingers between Harold’s where they rested on his stomach. “No hurry,” he said.


End file.
